You're not being a very good advert for your god if you can't give a decent answer.

*Yawn* End of conversation.

Post approved to demonstrate how Sky will take any opportunity not to answer the questions posed.

A cute and quippy assumption by a moderator. This is how I often respondto such comments as I quoted; by not reading the next line and ignoringall the posters comments going forward. Most forums do have an ignoreauthor feature, and moderators usually recommenced it's use. Ratherthan promote freedom of expression, this forum attempts to discourage peoplefrom not answering. It's the sickest twist on free expression I've ever seen.

Great! So you ARE going to answer the questions I asked? Or dodge them once again?

No, it would not be more accurate, because the latter implies that I am the original source for that theology. Speaking for myself does not mean I am unable to provide information from outside sources; it means that I am not claiming to represent the views of every Christian in every denomination in history.

You missed the more important of the two statements: "I can't base my entire belief system off a variation of argument from popularity." It's absurd to think that I would not take any position on the Bible or Christianity without first checking whether Suzette from Mississippi agrees.

It's also absurd to respond to a long post containing several points by referring to a nebulous group of "many Christians" who allegedly would disagree with my post yet are conveniently not around to share their views, discuss our areas of contention, or otherwise allow me to defend my points. "Many people somewhere in the word may disagree with you" is not an argument; it's an incredibly weakened form of the argument from popularity.

So yes, I only speak for myself, and my positions only stand for themselves. If you (or nogodsforme or anyone else) would like to discuss them, great. However, speculating what another Christian somewhere someplace somehow in some time may or may not say will not refute them.

Problem is, Mooby, there are a lot of Christians who would disagree with you, point by point. Who is right? And how exactly can anyone tell, if there is not a clearly visible difference (ie better health, stronger families, whatever) in the lives of those Christians who say one thing and those who say the opposite?

I can only speak for myself. I can't base my entire belief system off a variation of argument from popularity.

I agree that you can't base your beliefs on what other people think. It has to make sense to you. So, how do you know you are right? What evidence do you have that other Christians (let alone people with different religious views) are missing? Why do your views make more sense than those of the JW's, the Mormons, the Scientologists, the Hindus or the Muslims?

Again, there is not a real difference in the lives of people with different religious views from the unbelievers in the same society. In Japan and Denmark, Buddhists, Christians and atheists alike benefit from the good educations, health care and low crime rates. In Afghanistan and Haiti, everyone is waaaay worse off, no matter what they do or don't believe.

What evidence do you have that other Christians (let alone people with different religious views) are missing?

Again, I can't defend my views against a nebulous "Other people exist and they may disagree with you on things." Unless we're going to talk specific theological points, I can't answer much further. Unless you want me to start answering with something equally nebulous, such as, "I'm right because of nonspecific reasons existing somewhere in the space-time continuum."

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Why do your views make more sense than those of the JW's, the Mormons, the Scientologists, the Hindus or the Muslims?

Several views prevalent in those groups make plenty of sense to me. Again, you're asking me to defend against some nebulous implied argument from hypothetical people. None of the groups you mentioned believe in one thing, and I don't know any of them well enough to have a comprehensive list of beliefs I could compare to mine.[1]

So let's go with, "In all the places where those groups' members' views are different than mine, mine make more sense because the others are more nonsensical by comparison for reasons that exist somewhere in the space-time continuum, except in cases where their views actually make more sense than mine for reasons that exist somewhere in the space-time continuum, in which case they actually make more sense on those issues but not enough sense to overcome all the other areas where my views make more sense per the ongoing tally that exists somewhere in the multiverse; thus, my overall package is the most correct."

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Again, there is not a real difference in the lives of people with different religious views from the unbelievers in the same society.

God created the earth, according to Genesis, then Adam brought on the problems of Satan and Sin when he choose to leave God's Grace.

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man,...God did not create the ego problem. Man did.

So, you claimed it was all the fault of A&E. I showed it was not. Not even a little. Prior to them there was the serpent, who was obviously engaging in sinful activity.

Prior to that, there was yhwh who allowed the serpent into the garden and obviously wanted or planned for man to sin.

Prior to that there was satan who rebelled against god.

Man did not bring sin into the world. It was already present and allowed by yhwh, whom xians all say cannot stand sin. But if the omnipotent creator of all being cannot even keep sin out of heaven, or rid the universe of sin after trying like, three times, maybe we need to consider that one of our beliefs is wrong? yhwh must either not be omnipotent or he actually wants there to be sin. There are no other options.

But if the omnipotent creator of all being cannot even keep sin out of heaven, or rid the universe of sin after trying like, three times, maybe we need to consider that one of our beliefs is wrong? yhwh must either not be omnipotent or he actually wants there to be sin. There are no other options.

He did, and we don't oblige abundantly. What evidence do you have to showthat blind moles act any different because of what you perceive as blindness?

I've known blind people with good vision. They can trace out math slopes in the air the same as sighted folks. One guy rides a bicycle with no added technology. Do you have data showing that blind people are more spiritual? Or that moles are?

We are both correct. Sin originated before the earth was created.But Adam brought sin into our world after it was created. We could blame Eve for listening to the voice of Satan.This is where the ladies derive benefit from God's Male-Centricsystem. Adam takes the hit:

Romans 5:12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin,and in this way death came to all people...

You're not being a very good advert for your god if you can't give a decent answer.

*Yawn* End of conversation.

Post approved to demonstrate how Sky will take any opportunity not to answer the questions posed.

A cute and quippy assumption by a moderator. This is how I often respondto such comments as I quoted; by not reading the next line and ignoringall the posters comments going forward. Most forums do have an ignoreauthor feature, and moderators usually recommenced it's use. Ratherthan promote freedom of expression, this forum attempts to discourage peoplefrom not answering. It's the sickest twist on free expression I've ever seen.

A bad excuse for coming here, being unable to answer questions directly (rational discourse), and then refusing to engage by making use of copouts.

Romans 1:20 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse

I suggest you check anything that clergy says or does. They are sinners as well.

How about critically checking into the source of those clergy - i.e. that collection of ancient books you assumed was the absolute truth? Why not practice just as much skepticism with that book as you do with those clergy (or numerous other things in life)? Is it too much to ask for you to be consistent in your reasoning?

We are both correct. Sin originated before the earth was created.But Adam brought sin into our world after it was created. We could blame Eve for listening to the voice of Satan.This is where the ladies derive benefit from God's Male-Centricsystem. Adam takes the hit:

Romans 5:12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin,and in this way death came to all people...

So if the ladies make changes to the male-ness of the text then we would make this change: Eve is responsible for Sin.

You really don't read your bible, do you?

"And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat......Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee"

Nope. The serpent - whether a snake, a minion of the devil, or the Enemy himself - was a sinner and was already in the world. Unless the serpent somehow zoomed in under yhwh's radar, or existed outside yhwh's power, or smuggled in by Adam - all of which would require an explanation as it is not scriptural - it was placed there by yhwh. However you slice it, it was neither Eve nor her slow witted mate.

I think you need to be more clear about your position regarding the serpent and satan. On the one hand you said satan =/= serpent. You said the snake was influenced by satan. Now you're saying it was his voice. Come on, man. Why do I have to drag the information out of you? If you are here to discuss, discuss. Don't give us your position in tiny bits an pieces and make people guess. Give us a fully formed idea.

And to think, I almost apologized for accusing you of "hamfistedly" linking satan and the serpent. This is even more hamfisted than I thought.

I think this may be flogging a dead horse here, Screwtape! However....

Skywriting,

Please show us

How the Genesis passage shows us that Adam knew what he was eating was from the forbidden tree. This needs to be by quoting the text not saying there is a implication somewhere or that Paul knew something we don't

Show us In the Genesis passage how we might link the Accuser with the snake. You are welcome to see other uses of 'ha nahash' in the Hebrew texts to find a meaning or even to look it up in a standard lexicon. If you fail, then Paul also fails as he hasn't any better chance of linking the two.

When you reply we can take the discussion further

Logged

No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such that its falshood would be more miraculous than the facts it endeavours to establish. (David Hume)

What evidence do you have to show that blind moles act any different because of what you perceive as blindness?

Funny how the minute I crack a joke (albeit sarcastic) you go all literal on me And well you may wonder why atheists won't take you seriously - when you are unable to discern the crevasse between fiction and reality.

I think you need to be more clear about your position regarding the serpent and satan. On the one hand you said satan =/= serpent. You said the snake was influenced by satan. Now you're saying it was his voice. Come on, man. Why do I have to drag the information out of you? If you are here to discuss, discuss. Don't give us your position in tiny bits an pieces and make people guess. Give us a fully formed idea.

What he is practicing here is a very common Christian Apologetics tactic - avoid putting out any clear concise theological statements of belief (stay vague regarding a particular subject) so as to avoid refutation. I used to use this scheme all the time. When you don't tell the whole story of what you believe (because maybe you don't know what you believe exactly, or you know it sounds asinine and that it won't be accepted) it saves you from being shown to be in error and allows you time to call up your other apologetics buddies to ask how they would answer it (i.e. - how they would rationalize/SPIN it to make it sound OK so you can keep believing).

I think you need to be more clear about your position regarding the serpent and satan. On the one hand you said satan =/= serpent. You said the snake was influenced by satan. Now you're saying it was his voice. Come on, man. Why do I have to drag the information out of you? If you are here to discuss, discuss. Don't give us your position in tiny bits an pieces and make people guess. Give us a fully formed idea.

What he is practicing here is a very common Christian Apologetics tactic - avoid putting out any clear concise theological statements of belief (stay vague regarding a particular subject) so as to avoid refutation. I used to use this scheme all the time. When you don't tell the whole story of what you believe (because maybe you don't know what you believe exactly, or you know it sounds asinine and that it won't be accepted) it saves you from being shown to be in error and allows you time to call up your other apologetics buddies to ask how they would answer it (i.e. - how they would rationalize/SPIN it to make it sound OK so you can keep believing).

Many people wear different masks depending on who they are with. Particularly pronounced when in your teens, when the face you wear to your friends is dramatically different to the face you wear to your parents. You are something totally different to different people. It tends to get less pronounced as you get older, but still you are likely to be one person with your college buddies, another person at work, another person at the golf club.

The problem, of course, comes when you are with two groups at once. The teen trying to stay cool in front of his mates when his parents are around. The stress of a party when the workmates who know "dependable Joe" meet the college buddies who know "Joe the Freak", and the brain ache you have when you try not to alienate either group.

Sky, I think, is having a similar problem. He has one way of looking at things in one situation, and another way in another situation. The problem he is having is that we - naughty us! - keep trying to bring the two situations together, and showing him how his two answers do not fit together. I suspect that is another reason why he dodges - the fear of finding out that his many answers only appear to be a complete whole so long as you only look at one facet at a time. Try to see the whole picture, and the illusion crumbles.

What evidence do you have to show that blind moles act any different because of what you perceive as blindness?

Funny how the minute I crack a joke (albeit sarcastic) you go all literal on me And well you may wonder why atheists won't take you seriously - when you are unable to discern the crevasse between fiction and reality.

All of reality is in your mind. Nothing else exists except your perception of reality.

Nope. The serpent - whether a snake, a minion of the devil, or the Enemy himself - was a sinner and was already in the world.

The Garden (east of Eden) was not in our world. If so, we would findit with a couple of cherubs floating near the gates keeping us out. Plus it has some unusual trees and a talking serpent wandering around. Oh, and God walks there.

22Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”—23therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken.24So He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life.

SkyWriting, if you are wondering what we mean by evidence: whatever you would need to believe that Islam or Hinduism or Rastafarianism or Mormonism or Scientology was true, that is what we would need to believe in your religion.

All of reality is in your mind. Nothing else exists except your perception of reality.

So, let's apply that to daily life shall we. If what you are saying is true, nothing ever happened or exists beyond my mind. It materialises during my process of perceiving it. It pops into existence as I read about it, or see it, or think about it I could create new species of orchid just going out to look for them in the forest.Before I was born my mother didn't exist. When I die my family will cease to be real.If I pick up a fossil, the creature that left it never walked the earth, until I perceived the fossil in the dirt, indeed I poofed the fossil and the dirt into existence The tsunami in Japan didn't happen until I saw it on TV.

If I put any of that to my doctor next time I go for a check-up, do you think she'll agree? Or will she refer me to a psychiatrist for an assessment?

First paper deals with "religion" and "religiosity" without providing a concrete definition of "spiritual". The authors point out that it may be positive or negative for people to bullshit themselves with their own religion. See here:

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They propose that many patients use religion both as a coping resource and as an explanatory model for their disorder 1. This can have positive consequences (e.g., “I think my illness is God's punishment for my sins. It gives meaning to what happened to me, so it is less unjust”) or negative ones (e.g., “I have been praying for years. I am still ill because I don't believe in God's healing power enough. I am a bad person”) 2

FAIL!

Second paper deals with the problems of trying to pin down the concept of "spiritual" FAIL!

Third paper, right up front, makes the point that their definition can't be relied on:

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It is only partially related to spirituality and religiosity.

FAIL!

Fourth paper deals not with a scientific definition of spirituality but talking (i.e. giving lip service) to patients about whatever bullshit ideas they themselves happen to have about it:

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Patients’ spiritual needs were identified as: need to talk about spiritual concerns, showing sensitivity to patients’ emotions, responding to religious needs; and relatives’ spiritual needs included: supporting them with end of life decisions, supporting them when feeling being lost and unbalanced, encouraging exploration of meaning of life, and providing space, time and privacy to talk.

FAIL!

Fifth paper again fails to define spiritual - it only panders to whatever desires patients and families happen to express:

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Veterans and their families expressed a range of spiritual needs ..

No testable concept of "spiritual" there.FAIL!

Sixth paper doesn't deal with spirituality, but rather "“spiritual dryness” That's actually people being honest that they have no spirituality FAIL!

Seventh paper is about two indirect indicators, namely "peace" and "life worthwhile".

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The APCA African POS items peace and life worthwhile capture distinct but related constructs which indicate the extent of a patient’s spiritual well-being in palliative care populations in sub-Saharan Africa.

FAIL!

That's seven FAILS in a row. I refuse to go on. Skywriting, please, I am not your research assistant.Read your references before you post.

Firstly, alarm bells "Self evolution" is a contradiction in terms. They are not free to hijack a well understood scientific term like "evolution" for a pseudo-science purpose. At worst it is a DISHONEST attempt at passing off, at best it's just UNPROFESSIONAL.Then they go on with this nonsense (look past the obvious typos):

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The evolution in all spheres of life has reached almost at its zenith and now the research studies are focusing to find out as to how the life evolved on the planet and if there is any super power governing the planet, earth.

So here we have people who think "evolution" has peaked Now they have burdened themselves with a serious credibility problem.I go on to read their paper. Instead of a definition of "spiritual", something that I could test or work with in some degree of certainty with a minimum of assumptions, it does nothing but expand the murkiness:

So instead of getting clarity we now have 114 items ... every one of which means something else in it's own right (and some of which are rubbish)

One good lesson from this one though - it's an excellent demonstration that weird stuff can and does get published in obscure journals Getting into print doesn't necessarily mean that it has actually passed rigorous peer review in the external scientific community.

But returning to my question about a scientifically usable concept of spiritual. The above paper deals with a sloppy hodgepodge of "spiritual health" - an elaborate confusing substitution of what I asked for. See here is the definition (taken from their key reference) of what they are pretending to do "science" with:

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Spiritual health is a: State of being where an individual is able to deal with day-to-day life in a manner which leads to the realization of one's full potential; meaning and purpose of life; and happiness from within.

Many atheists can do everything required by that definition while rejecting the notion of "spiritual". But they'd be marked down on the SHS 2011 scale because they don't "pray" and would never report "considering oneself as a part of the supreme (beyond self)."

From the article: "The authors have conducted a research study to define and measure the spiritual health of an individual and have named it as Spiritual Health Scale (SHS 2011)."

Ha! So the authors came to the table with a presupposition (that there is a non-physical aspect to our being), arbitrarily named it what they wanted to, and then acted as if they were doing a "measure" by use of, "Determinants like Commitment, Introspection, Honesty, Creativity, Contemplation, Prayer, Philanthropy, Extending Self, Empathy, Yoga and Exercise, Questioning Injustice, Aesthetics, Value for Time, and Being Away From Comparisons."

Wow Sky, you really are gullible. I have some swampland in Arizona to sell you. It's a great deal! Interested?

Jesus did not rise from the deadThere was no virgin MaryNo serpent talked There was no Adam and EveNo one turned water into wine5 Loaves and 2 fish did not feed 5000Sticks did not turn into snakesA donkey did not talk

Don't get me wrong - I agree. Genesis is fiction and Eden is an idealized paradise imagined by Bronze Age story tellers. But if we are going with a literalist interpretation of those stories - which is the point of view we have been discussing from - your claim here is completely wrong and nonbiblical.

Gen 2, when it talks about the garden in the East Eden, follows right after the creation of everything else and man. Because of that, it appears that the writers intended to say it was on the earth that was just created. It even mentions actual rivers in Iraq. There is no indication otherwise. It definitely does not say, "and then yhwh created a completely separate place that was not connected to the flat earth he just built..." There would be no point in building the earth and then building a second, unconnected place and drop the man in there.

"Hmm. Lemme see. I'll build an earth. And do nothing with it. It's just "there". Oh, I know. I'll make a guy out of the dirt from it. Okay. Now, over here, Imma build Eden. And I'll drop the guy into it. yeah. That's good. I'll just keep earth as a backup."

And let's not forget to mention that gen1 makes no mention of Eden at all. All the plants, animal and people - there is no elaborate story about Eve being made from a rib - are all in the same place: on earth.

If so, we would find it with a couple of cherubs floating near the gates keeping us out. Plus it has some unusual trees and a talking serpent wandering around. Oh, and God walks there.

yep. And since we do not find any of that, anywhere I would say that is a strong indicator that it is not real and never was. Or do you think perhaps the Gingerbread Man, Puss in Boots and Jack's beanstalk were all real, just not on our world?

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Unless you have pictures....the Garden was not our world.

Unless I have pictures. That's hilarious. You crack me up. Of course I don't have pictures. I don't think Eden is real and I'm not trying to argue it was. I'm arguing literary criticism here. Within the context of the story we are discussing, I've successfully argued that sin was not brought into the world by Eve and her slow witted mate, as you have claimed. I have successfully argued it was already present in the form of the serpent, however the serpent is interpreted. Every post from you since then has been a big, fat red herring. Ask yourself why that is.

But do I get to use that argument too? Let me try it. Unless you have pictures, there was no exodus. Unless you have pictures, Isaac was slaughterd by AbeUnless you have pictures, Mary got knocked up by Joe and fabricated the whole virgin thing.Unless you have pictures, jesus was never crucified.

Wow. Works like a charm. (I saw median's post after I wrote this. Good work median. You did a better job than I.)

You know, there is no harm in getting rid of a belief that is demonstrably wrong. There is no shame in thanking me for teaching you something new or seeing a different perspective.